


Take a Break

by wbh



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Drabble, Father Figure Bobby, Fluff, Gen, Missing Scene, Prompt Fill, The Apocalypse, season 5
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-01
Updated: 2016-03-01
Packaged: 2018-05-24 05:23:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,652
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6142864
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wbh/pseuds/wbh
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Bobby has an unexpected visitor, he tries to get an angel to take a break.<br/>Takes place between “Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid” and “Dark Side of the Moon”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Take a Break

**Author's Note:**

> In response to this prompt on livejournal: http://spnkink-meme.livejournal.com/106950.html?thread=40384966#t40384966  
> Thanks for the plot bunny!  
> Un-Betaed; all mistakes mine

Bobby had thought the apocalypse couldn’t get much worse, but he’d been dead wrong. Being stuck in a damn chair wasn’t enough, he’d had to deal with his dead wife rising from the grave - a too-brief few days of happiness before she went all zombiefied, along with half the town. Bobby’s only comfort was that he wasn’t the only one around who knew or remembered the incident. Sheriff Jody’d been over more than a few times to take advantage of his whiskey, and he hadn’t even had the heart to tell her off for free-loading. Saved him from having to call up that old bastard Rufus to have someone to be miserable and drunk with.

It had been a few weeks since the zombie incident, and Bobby had seen what the death toll had done to Sam and Dean, especially Dean. Kid carried a lot of crap on his shoulders he didn’t have to, and seeing him get disheartened about failing to fend off some of the collateral damage of the end of the world had been troubling in more ways than one. Dean kept going like he was, he might get to thinking about saying yes to the supreme winged dick, Michael. And that would be about ninety flavors of bad.

So Bobby had sent the boys off on a simple hunt; a salt and burn so straightforward it would be almost like a vacation with how screwed their lives were these days. Hell, maybe it wasn’t such a good idea, the time-sensitive nature of their lives becoming more and more apparent by the day, but the boys weren’t good to anyone if they were stressed out of their minds all the time. He didn’t tell them that was the reason he’d sent them the case though. Dean especially would have raised hell if he’d thought Bobby was telling him to take a break. But they all needed to do it sometimes, even if they didn’t want to hear it.

With some of his few contacts to the outside world gone for at least the weekend (and wasn't that a depressing thought), Bobby was left home alone, puttering around his kitchen, cooking chili for dinner, and trying to ignore the pile of dirty dishes filling up the sink. He’d just opened the refrigerator to take out a beer when a familiar sound of fluttering wings sounded behind him. He turned his chair quickly by spinning one wheel, his reflexes with the mechanics of the chair better after a few months navigating the thing, and slammed into the open fridge door in his hurry to see who’d just appeared in his kitchen.

Bobby relaxed at the sight of a familiar tan trench coat. “Would it kill you to call ahead?” he grumbled, spinning away from Castiel to finish pulling out his beer and close the fridge door. When he turned back around, Cas was still there, looking rumpled and stone-faced and un-angelic as always.

“Do you know where Dean and Sam are?” Cas asked, not answering his question, his deep voice seeming to fill the kitchen in a way Bobby still found way more intimidating than he’d ever admit. When Bobby didn’t answer right away, Cas continued, “I tried calling them, but there was no answer. I cannot find them on my own now.”

Bobby knew that, but for some reason Castiel always felt the need to remind him, like he was apologizing for not being able to make full use of his angel mojo. He wasn’t surprised to hear that the angel hadn’t been able to reach the Winchesters though – he’d made sure to send Sam and Dean somewhere outside normal cell phone range.

“They’re on a small-time hunt, outta cell-range, nothing to worry about,” he assured Castiel. When the angel didn’t seem to relax at all, still standing stiffly at attention beside Bobby’s flimsy kitchen table, he added, “This isn’t an emergency, is it?”

Cas was quiet long enough that Bobby started to worry. Shit. Was something up in heaven? Had the other angels finally found a way around Castiel’s wards? Found a way to possess a human without consent? Bobby’s thoughts ran wild until Cas finally said, “No.” He sounded sure to Bobby, but also disappointed. “You do not need to bother them. I just hoped they’d be able to help me with something. A new thought I had, about how to find God.”

Ah. Castiel’s crazy personal crusade. Nothing out of the ordinary then. Bobby took a closer look at Cas, wondering how the angel was holding up. Couldn’t have been easy, rebelling against all of heaven – pretty much his entire family, from what Bobby knew about angels, which admittedly wasn’t a whole lot. Castiel looked like his usual self, standing there in Bobby’s dim kitchen, somehow rigid even with his bad posture, like he was carrying something no one could see. As Bobby looked closer, though, he noticed the lines around Cas’s eyes were more pronounced than ususal. Dark circles made his blue eyes stand out more than ever, his hair was a tangled disaster, his expression less neutral and more turned toward a permanent frown, and while his tie was always backward, the look combined with everything else to make the angel look like a man who’d had more than a few sleepless nights. And while not sleeping at all was apparently normal for the halo-crowd (Bobby remembered all too well Castiel’s deep, firm admonishment of “I do not require sleep”), for some strange reason Bobby found himself hoping Cas wouldn’t just fly off looking like that.

“Want some chili?” Bobby asked, not quite sure what else to offer. He could on occasion get Sam and Dean to relax, but hell if he knew how to get an angel on a holy mission to slow down and take a load off.

Castiel tilted his head, eyes narrowing as he looked at Bobby in that way that made it all-too-clear how far from human he was. After years of hunting creatures from nightmares, Bobby still had to remind himself Cas was on their side when faced with that alien look.

“I don’t need food,” Castiel answered, but he said it slowly. Bobby might have been imagining it, but he thought Cas sounded less sure about that than the last time he’d firmly reminded them all how powerful he was. Being cut off from heaven couldn’t have been a picnic for the guy these past few months. Bobby knew he was losing power fast, even if he didn’t want to talk about it.

“So what if you don’t need it?” he asked, trying not to let on that he’d been thinking that Cas just might start needing things like food soon. And sleep. “I’ve seen you pound down liquor, know you can if you want too.” Bobby swallowed at the memory of the night Cas had done that, not too long ago at all, and pushed it deep, deep down. “I’ve got too much here, you gonna leave me with all that cleanup?” Truth was, Bobby could easily have finished the food on his own, but he didn’t want Cas to know that.

Castiel hesitated, but then nodded slightly and went to rummage in Bobby’s cabinets for a bowl and a spoon. Bobby ignored him on purpose, digging into this own bowl and taking swigs from his now lukewarm beer. He couldn’t tell if Cas had given in out of curiosity about the food, or if he also secretly thought it might help him feel better. Or if (and Bobby had trouble even thinking this) he had been _hungry_ for the first time, and only just realized it. The thought of their team angel falling for good, of them losing the one trump card they’d had for a bit in this whole war, made Bobby queasy, and not only for Cas’s sake.

Once Castiel had served himself some chili, he sat carefully in one of Bobby’s chairs and ate with him. He seemed surprised by the flavors, and unfamiliar with the action of chewing, but Bobby decided not to say anything about his odd way of holding the spoon, or the funny, wide-eyed expressions he made with the first few bites. Didn’t want to scare him off eating forever.

“Why don’t you stick around for a while, take a load off? Sam and Dean might call; you could talk to them about what you came here for.”

Cas shook his head, but his eyelids were drooping. “I need to continue my search for my father,” he said, but he sounded exhausted, and he looked almost worse than when he’d arrived, like just eating Bobby’s food had been the final straw for his energy reserves.

He was apparently still keen on getting back to his mission though, newfound tiredness be damned. Finding God. Finding his father. His _father_ , and hell if that wasn’t a whole damn mess Bobby didn’t feel qualified to unpack. “You can do that in a bit. You said you wanted to talk to ‘em about your whole God search; makes more sense for you to stay here and wait. You can help me with some research I’m doing on the horsemen.” Bobby made sure his tone didn’t allow for any argument, and wheeled out of the kitchen and into his study without a backward glance.

He figured it was a fifty-fifty shot, Castiel listening to him on this, but amazingly, the angel followed Bobby, took the book Bobby handed to him, and settled himself on the couch.

When Bobby glanced over at him a few minutes later, he was unsurprised to see Cas was no longer sitting up straight. He was tilted slightly the the side, head pillowed on the arm of the couch, eyes closed and hands limp around the open book in his lap.

“Don’t need to sleep my ass,” Bobby grumbled. “Idjit.”


End file.
